What is it that Michelangelo knew and was trying to tell us when he did this representation of Moses . . for the Tomb of Pope Julius II . . . with horns.

from Volume 2 Where Were You Before the Tree of life?

Joseph and Moses are not mentioned in any Egyptian texts under those names, although both were said by the Bible to be great in the land of Egypt. Moses is positively cited in Exodus (2:19) as ?an Egyptian.? In Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus says that Moses was commander of the Egyptian army in the war against Ethiopia. Only after he left were the rest of the Israelites put into captivity. Tracing the events narrated in the Old Testament through Egyptian texts, however, Gardner finds that it was during the reign of Ramses II (1304-1237 BC) that Semitic people were settled in the land of Goshen, having left Canaan for want of food. So it was in the 15th century BC, not 18th as suggested by standard Biblical chronology, that Joseph was appointed Chief Minister to the pharaoh, Thothmosis IV (c. 1413-1405) under the name of Yuya. Israel/Jacob had taken his family into Egypt to avoid a famine, and there multiplied until led out by Moses. It was a period of approximately 400 years between Joseph, the son of Israel, and Joseph the vizier known as Yuya. They are not one and the same person.

Joseph the vizier also became the father of a pharaoh, however: ?God hath made me a father of a Pharaoh? (Genesis 45:8). His mummy, which has been found in the Valley of Kings, is unusual. Among his attributions is listed ?Father of the Lord of Two Lands? (Egypt-the Pharaoh and Israel-Moses). His son, Pharaoh Akhenaten, was responsible for initiating the ?One God? concept in Egypt, a concept brought directly from Ugarit and the Canaan from whence they had come.

His older son became Chancellor of Lower Egypt, High Priest of Heliopolis and Divine father of the nation. But it was his younger son, Aye, who held the special distinction ?Father of God? and became Pharaoh in 1352 BC?as did other descendants of Yusuf-Yuya, including the now famous Tutankhamun.

Thothmosis IV was the pharaoh responsible for cleaning the sands away from the Sphinx as he was instructed to do in a dream. He was then followed by Amenhotep III. Amenhotep, as tradition held, married his sister but also married Joseph?s daughter Tiye. Fearing the growing power the Israelites were gaining in Egypt, however, it was decreed that no child of Tiye?s could be Pharaoh. Thus when Tiye had a child, it was decreed that it should be put to death at birth if it were a son. Tiye arranged to have the child at her summer palace at Zarw, and since it was a boy, arranged with the midwives to sail the baby down the stream in a reed basket, as the Bible describes, to the home of her father Joseph?s half-brother, Levi.

The boy, Aye or Amanda (born around 1394 BC), was one day to be known as Moses. He was educated by the Egyptian priests of Ra, and went on to live in Thebes as a teenager, taking the name of Akhenaton because of his believe in the one god, Aton, rather than believing in the pantheon of Egyptian gods. By this time, his mother had gained more power than the queen who had not been able to bear sons, only a daughter?Nefertiti.

Pharaoh Amenhotep suffered a period of ill health, and there was no direct heir to the throne. In order to rule as co-regent during this difficult time, Akhenaton (Adminadab/Moses), married his half-sister Nefertiti. Akhenaten drew his power from his wife Nefertiti, the heiress

The anointing of the king was an Egyptian custom inherited even more anciently from Sumer in Mesopotamia, and constituted the privileged duty of the Pharaoh?s semi-divine sister-brides. Crocodile fat was the substance used in anointing because it was associated with sexual prowess. (Indeed, the word for ?crocodile? in Egyptian was messeh, which corresponds to the Hebrew word Messiah ? ?Anointed One? ). Akhenaton was then able to succeed Amenhotep to the throne as Amenhotep IV. Akhenaton and Nefertiti had six daughters and a son, Tutankhaten.

In his new role as Pharaoh, Amenhotep IV changed his official name to the one he had chosen as a teenager, Akhenaton, and closed all the temples of the Egyptian gods, building new ones to Aten, an omnipotent God who had no image?the equivalent of Adonai (Lord). Akhenaton was the last important ruler of the 18th dynasty and notable as the first historical figure to establish a religion based on the concept of monotheism. He established the cult of Aton, or Aten, the sun god or solar disk, which he believed to be a universal, omnipresent spirit and the sole creator of the universe.

Akhenaton was intensely disliked, especially by the priest of the old gods, and there were many threats of armed insurrection. He was eventually forced to abdicate in favor of Smenkhkare, who was in turn succeeded by Akhenaten?s son, Tutankhaten, who took the throne at 11 years of age, but was obliged to change his name to Tutankhamun to reflect allegiance to the old gods of Amun rather than to Aten. His ruled for a mere nine or ten years. There is no Egyptian record of either Akhenaten or Smenkhare?s deaths.

Akhenaten himself was banished from Egypt, and fled with some of his retainers to Sinai, ?taking with him his royal scepter topped with a brass serpent.? To his supporters he was still regarded as the true heir?Mose, Meses or Mosis, meaning ?beloved of?, ?heir? or ?born of??as in Thuthmosis (born of Thuth) and Ramses (fashioned of Ra).

James Henry Breasted?s translation of an ancient Egyptian stela known as the ?Stela of Sheshonk? from the reign of Paynozem II relates how this matter of Moses ?son of Sudaimon? was brought before Ra who then acquits him. . .

Evidence from Egypt indicates that Moses (Akhenaten) led his people southward through Sinai to the marshy territory of Lake Timash where it was hard for horses to follow. Among the retainers who fled with Moses were the sons and families of Jacob (Israel). Others followed him in waves of exodus out of Egypt.

And thus it was that Moses and the Israelites came to the foot of Mt. Sinai.

The Egypt that Moses/Akhenaton had fled from was a country that had worshipped the dark space gods of Sirius and Orion, and the remnants of Atlantis. Above all, they had placed Lucifer as Amun, or Ra, or Amun Ra, as the highest god.

Elaine Pagels states in her book, The Origins of Satan, that Satan is ?virtually absent? from the Hebrew Bible. A knowledge of Lucifer and perhaps more than a passing acquaintance with him and his history, however, makes this statement flawed. This is made obvious in the works of another of the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah (14:12-14). The Hebrew poet addresses a taunt song to the king of Babylon, whose military might and arrogance had led him to commit the crime of hubris (arrogance): ?I will make myself like the Most High!? (verse 14).

In the taunting parody of the Babylonian king, the author calls him ?Helel, Son of Dawn.? The Hebrew word helel means ?shining one.? This is an obvious comparison to Lucifer, an affront of the gravest nature. The ?shining one, Son of the Dawn? are epithets related to Lucifer, similar to the mythological example to be found in the Greek legend of Phaeton. Phaeton, in the Greek story, was the ?shining? son of Helios who attempted to drive his father?s golden chariot but was unable to control the massive power of its horses. The parallel is obvious, for like Phaeton the Babylonian king attempted to assert powers that were too great for him; his inadequacy would result in his doom, much as Lucifer?s attempt for ultimate supremacy shall also end in failure.

Similarly, Baal?s major epithets reflect his prominent position among the gods, achieved as a result of conflict, and his fertility-bestowing powers, mirroring His true nature as Lucifer. Baal/Lucifer is called ? victor . . prince . . king . . judge . . most high . . lord of the earth . . rider of the clouds . . . and he is also given the name of Hadad, a well-known ancient Near Eastern storm-god. In His conquest of the planet, Lucifer has made His presence felt in every major culture and every major religion. That is why Religion was ?lowered? to the planet as an intercessor to guide humanity away from the true god they had inside them all the time. It is such miraculous powers as the right to intercede with God and the right to forgive sins with the assurance that God will acceded to the priest?s judgement, that sets the priest apart from all other men. And, in spite of all the rifts and protests, the church dedication to this role of the church and its priests has not diminished over the centuries.

The fact is that, although the historical aspects of the Old Testament are treated and taught from a Hebrew standpoint with an originally Mesopotamian base, there was also a significant Egyptian impact on the culture which has been strategically ignored. This comes to light through the research of Laurence Gardner, specifically from the time of the Sinai incident and proves to be the very reason why the all important book of Jasher was excluded from the canon. It would show where the origins of some Christian thought comes from. Its exclusion, like that of many other works of included in the Gnostic Scriptures, shows the depth to which religion was manipulated so as not to provide any true answers to historical questions of who these gods were.

It was upon the mountain at Sinai that Jehovah first announced his presence to Moses. Being an Aten supporter, Moses asked this new lord and master who he was - and the reply was 'I am that I am', which in phonetic Hebrew became Yahweh (Jehovah). However, for the longest time afterwards, the Israelites were not allowed to utter the name Jehovah, except for the High Priest who was allowed to whisper it in private once a year. The problem was that prayers were supposed to be said to this new godhead - but how would he know they were to him if his name was not mentioned?

While the deaths of other gods in Sumerian history are recorded, gods such as Timat, Mummu, Apsu and Dumu-zi, this new god Jehovah, on the other hand, is said to be ?from everlasting to everlasting.? (Psalm 90:2)

According to Gardner, the Israelite exiles from Egypt knew that Jehovah was not the same as Aten (their traditional Adon or Lord), and so they presumed he must be the equivalent of the great State God of Egypt - even if not one and the same. It was decided, therefore, to add the name of that State-god to all prayers thereafter, and the name of that god was Amen. To this day, the name of Amen is still recited at the end of prayers. Even the well-known Christian Lord's Prayer (as given in the Gospel of Matthew) was transposed from an Egyptian original which began: 'Amen, Amen, who art in heaven ...'

As for the famous Ten Commandments, said to have been conveyed to Moses by God upon the mountain, these too are of Egyptian origin, deriving directly from Spell Number 125 in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. They were not new codes of conduct invented for the Israelites, but were simply newly stated versions of the ritual confessions of the pharaohs. For example, the confession 'I have not killed' was transposed to the decree Thou shalt not kill; 'I have not stolen' became Thou shalt not steal; 'I have not told lies' became Thou shalt not bear false witness - and so on.

Not only were the Ten Commandments drawn from Egyptian ritual, but so too were the Psalms (which are attributed to King David) reworked from Egyptian hymns. Even the Old Testament book of Proverbs - the so-called wise words of Solomon - was translated almost verbatim into Hebrew from the writings of an Egyptian sage called Amenemope. These are now held at the British Museum, and verse after verse of the book of Proverbs can be attributed to this Egyptian original. It has now been discovered that even the writings of Amenemope were extracted from a far older work called The Wisdom of Ptah-hotep, which comes from more than 2000 years before the time of Solomon.

In addition to the Book of the Dead and the ancient Wisdom of Ptah-hotep, various other Egyptian texts were used in compiling the Old Testament. These include the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin Texts, from which references to the Egyptian gods were simply transposed to relate to the Hebrew god Jehovah.

What is particularly interesting is that, historically, this was not fully contrived in the time of Abraham, nor even in the later time of Moses. It did not happen until the 6th century BC, when tens of thousands of Israelites were held captive by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Until that time, the Hebrew and Israelite records referred to any number of gods and goddesses by individual names, and under a general plural classification of the Elohim.

Through some 500 years from the Captivity, the scriptures existed only as a series of quite separate writings and it was not until after the time of Jesus that these were collated into a single volume. Jesus would himself never have heard of the Old Testament or the Bible, but the scriptures to which he had access included many books that were not selected for the compilation that we know today. Strangely though, some of these are still mentioned in the modern Bible text as being important to the original culture, including the enigmatic book of Jasher.

Jasher was the Egyptian-born son of Caleb; he was brother-in-law to the first Israelite judge Othneil and an uncle of Bezaleel the Master Craftsman, as well as being the appointed staff-bearer to Moses. It is generally reckoned that the book of Jasher's position in the Bible should be between the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua, but it was sidestepped by the editors because it sheds a very different light on the sequence of events at Mount Horeb in Sinai.

The familiar Exodus account explains that Jehovah issued instructions to Moses concerning masters and servants, covetousness, neighborly behaviour, crime, marriage, morality, and many other issues including the all-important rule of the Sabbath - along with the Ten Commandments. But, in Jasher (which pre-dates the Exodus writings), these laws and ordinances are not conveyed to Moses by Jehovah. In fact, Jehovah is not mentioned at all. The new laws, says the book of Jasher, were communicated to Moses and the Israelites by Jethro, High Priest of Midian and Lord of the Mountain. In effect, Jethro (whose daughter, Zipporah, Moses married) was the overall governor of the Sinai Temple.

In Canaan, the title Lord (or Lofty One) of the Mountain, was defined as El Shaddai, and this is particularly significant for, as previously mentioned, this was precisely the name related to Moses when he asked the Lord to reveal his identity. The Lord said 'I am that I am (YHWH); I am he that Abraham called El Shaddai'. YHWH became eventually transposed to the name Jehovah but, as related in Jasher (and as confirmed in Exodus when correctly read), this Lord was not a deiform god at all; he was Jethro the El Shaddai, the great vulcan and Master Craftsman of the Hathor Temple.

In the translation of The Book of Jasher by Alcuin Flaccus Albinus, Abbot of Canterbury (Longman, London, 1929, section Testimonies and Notes, 14:9-33) says there is no mention of Jehovah.

Another very important aspect of the book of Jasher is that it explains that it was not Moses who was the spiritual leader of the tribes who left Egypt for Sinai; their spiritual leader and chief counsellor was Miriam, the half-sister of Moses who receives only passing mentions in the book of Exodus. Indeed, as detailed in Jasher, Miriam's position posed such a problem for Moses in his attempt to create an environment of male dominance that he imprisoned her - as a result of which the Israelites rose up against Moses to secure her release.

There is no doubt that, for all the scribal manipulation of old texts, Miriam (Meryamon of Egypt) emerges outside the canonical Bible as a key character of the era but, just like Mary Magdalene in New Testament times, she has been ignored and forgotten by Church establishments founded as male-dominated institutions. Of Miriam, the book of Aaron (credited to Hur, the grandfather of Bezaleel) relates:

?Miriam from hence became the admired of the Hebrews; every tongue sang of her praise. She taught Israel; she tutored the children of Jacob and the people called her, by way of eminence, the Teacher. She studied the good of the nation, and Aaron and the people harkened unto her. To her the people bowed; to her the afflicted came.?

To Gardner, the true relevance of Miriam, however, is that she was a recognized Dragon Queen of the matrilinear Grail bloodline. It was primarily from her that the dynastic line ensued to culminate in the Royal House of David, which owes its kingly origin to Miriam's pharaonic descent, rather than to any patriarchal heritage from Abraham, as we are generally led to believe. It is with Abraham?s son Isaac that Jehovah establishes his covenant.

This line of succession (from Cain and the Mesopotamian dynasts, through the early pharaohs of Egypt, to King David and onward to Jesus), in his words, ?was purpose-bred to be the earthly purveyors of the Light. They were the true 'sons of the gods', who were fed firstly on Anunnaki Star Fire from about 3800 BC and, subsequently, on high-spin metal supplements from abut 2000 BC? . . .